Todd Pletcher has earned his earnings. He has put in the hours. He has sweated the small stuff. He has built a racing empire on a grand scale by being diligent about a million minor details, by being systematic and unstinting, by refining the lessons he learned from D. Wayne Lukas.

But if you ask Pletcher to explain why he will soon surpass his mentor as racing's foremost money machine — possibly as soon as Saturday's Kentucky Derby — his default answer is "inflation."

"Don't get me wrong, it's something we'd be proud of," Pletcher said outside Barn 34 at Churchill Downs. "Anytime you can approach milestones like that, it's an indication of consistent success. But when you break it down — his record, his accomplishments — no one can match them."

The first trainer to surpass $100 million, $200 million and $250 million, Lukas has held racing's career earnings record for more than a quarter of a century, since surpassing Charlie Whittingham in 1988. Though Lukas' 14 victories in Triple Crown races is a standard that could last for generations — Pletcher's total stands at three — the money lead appears to be on its last legs.

Equibase credited Lukas with career earnings of $268,398,277 as of Monday afternoon. Pletcher ranked second with $266,166,799, but he is scheduled to saddle four starters in the Derby and two fillies in Friday's Kentucky Oaks — two seven-figure stakes races in which Lukas has no entries. Given the relative size of their stables, the torch-passing has advanced from a possibility to an inevitability — one Lukas readily acknowledges.

"Some of those records are going to take him a little longer, (but) the earnings record is a slam-dunk, right there for the asking. ... " Lukas said Monday morning. "When he breaks it, I'll be the proudest guy. I wouldn't be quite as proud if somebody else broke it. But for the people I admire — and he was such a good employee, such a good assistant — I really feel good about it."

Pletcher spent two of his college summers as a groom at Lukas' Arlington Park stable, and rejoined him on a full-time basis after his graduation from the University of Arizona. In 61/2 years at Lukas' elbow, Pletcher played a progressively important role in racing's first truly national operation. When he went out on his own in 1995, it was as a credentialed commodity.

"Just the opportunity to be exposed to the type of horses that (Lukas) trained, to be his assistant in New York, that credibility alone that gives you is such a big head start in the business," Pletcher said. "The training aspect of it, the organizational part of it — it was a foundation that you really couldn't get anywhere else in the industry."

The personalities of the two men approach polar extremes. If Lukas is a brass band, loud and lively and prone to parading, Pletcher comes off as understated as a string quartet. What they share is energy, vision, work ethic, the organizational skill to manage a large stable and a willingness to delegate responsibility.

"What they do over there, I don't know how they keep track of everything," trainer Jimmy Jerkens said of Pletcher's operation. But "that's why he is where he is. That would drive me crazy to have that many horses all over the place, but they make it work.

"They have a system that's just incredible. He obviously has top-notch assistants and everything like that, but I don't think even if I had that I could have horses running on the other side of the country and me being somewhere else. It would be really unsettling for me."

As of Monday morning, Pletcher said his racing inventory included 164 horses, and that's a significant shift since his 2007 peak in the 250-horse range. Now 46, Pletcher has tightened his training triangle to emphasize Saratoga and Belmont Park in New York and Monmouth Park Raceway on the New Jersey shore.

"At one time, we had a division in Chicago," Pletcher said. "But when you break down the numbers, this is a little more feasible fiscally and personally. We could handle more, but I think at this stage of my career, I'm trying to focus on quality and maybe one less airplane ride a week."

Former jockey Richard Migliore, who rode Jersey Girl to Pletcher's first major stakes victory, remembers sharing a long-ago limousine ride with the trainer before a Delaware Park Handicap and being struck by his certainty in Pletcher's success.

"I remember thinking how together he was," Migliore said. "His focus, his intensity and his obvious love of the game — I'll give you a perfect example: He won five races in one day at Saratoga, and the Grade 1 (stakes) that day. And we took the kids for pizza. And he was getting up at 8:30 at night, after the kids had pizza, to drive to Belmont from Saratoga, to train those horses the next day, then going on to Monmouth to train those the next day.

"He wasn't out celebrating. He wasn't out partying. He was already plotting his next move of what he had to do. That kind of work ethic, you just don't really see in this day and age."

During the worst of Monday morning's thunderstorms, Lukas said he was aware of only three men who braved the elements to train their horses. One was Steve Asmussen, who has won more races than any other active trainer. The others were Wayne Lukas and Todd Pletcher.